The Nuclear Dream
by Pilgrimage
Summary: Moving in with Wally West isn't the worst idea, Artemis swears it's not. She isn't having second thoughts, but she's still got knots in her stomach. [Spitfire]


_**A/N:**__ I write Flash fanfic too._

* * *

"Wally?" She calls him even though they've been in bed for hours now, and it's four in the morning. And he sleeps like a log.

Said log continues to lightly snore into her hair, and she feels his warm breath blowing against the nape of her neck.

"_Wally_?" She hisses this time.

He just hums against her skin, and pulls her closer to him, wrapping a free arm around her waist. His leg is next, snaking around her too.

"_Kidiot!_" She jerks in his grip, and he finally rouses to a semi-conscious stupor.

"-abe, whassamatter?" He croaks over her shoulder.

"This bed…" she muses.

He just groans. She winces to this, because she _knows_ she's been a royal pain since they officially moved into the apartment. Even after they had stowed away all the luggage, boxes, and crates, and all the heavy duty work had come to pass, something had to 'off'.

If it wasn't the light fixtures that gave an 'annoying glare', it was the toilet that 'doesn't flush nearly as fast as it should'. Or, it was the way the back door 'doesn't close quite right, what if someone breaks in and…', 'we entertain them with a cup of tea, what do you think _we'd_ be able to do to them, Artemis?'

She turns to face him now, and she sees that he's scrubbing his face, eyes bloodshot, but open to her. "You're not complaining about this bed. Not really," he says with a heavy sigh. "And it's not about the shitty craftsmanship we're surrounded by."

Artemis bites her lip. "I'm sorry…"

"You know," he starts, releasing her to run his fingers through his already disheveled hair. "When I asked you to move in with me, I expected you to be nervous. But—"

"I'm not having second thoughts," she blurts out.

Wally's eyebrows rise, hiding behind his fringe now. "Now, I really am worried." He looks it too. It's an uncanny impression of how anxious he looked when he first came, primly and overly dressed, to her Gotham doorstep, with her mother giving his flowers a quizzical look and Jade simpering in the background.

"It's weird, waking up and not having my day scheduled around training or the next mission or the next baddie."

"Funny, I was thinking that it's been amazing waking up to see you, have you next to me, and know that that's how I'd be waking up every morning." It's a beautiful sentiment that he manages to twist with a bitter tone.

She rolls her eyes, and takes his face in her hands. When he attempts to turn from her, frowning, she forces him to look at her. "You're delusional if you think I'm not happy."

"So…"

"So, maybe, I'm not used to the 2.5, nuclear dream life, with the promise that people…stay." She puts her hands around his neck, and presses her temple against his. "I put that to bed when my sister left."

Wally just breathes calmly with her.

"I never had a single thought about having it all, until you." She feels rather than sees his smile in response.

"I'm sensing a major 'but' here, babe."

"But," she begins, and pulls back to see the olive hue in his eyes, he is searching her. "Wally, what if we're needed?"

"There are new recruits."

"What if our _friends _need help?"

"_We _agreed to retire, didn't we?" He asks her, seriously. "I didn't force you to quit the Team, right?"

She pinches the fabric of the loose tank top he's wearing and tugs at their comforter to drape her shoulders. "Of course."

"Right." He buries his head into his pillow before facing her, looking restless again.

"I still want all of it with you, and wake up in this lumpy bed next to you," she pauses to smirk at his exasperated groan, and she notes not to say anything about her hatred of his choice of maroon-coloured drapes. "Everyday, I'll do that with you. But, we can't fight who we are, no more than you can fight what your Uncle's formula did to you, or how my dad trained his _baby girl_."

She waits because she can see Wally thinking, she knows the look of the cogs turning and turning about within him. He's a brilliant, rational man, but she gives way for his emotions too, because she knows how they can be when they're not reigned in with her patience.

"I know…"He finally relents.

"I guess, what I'm trying to ask you, West…is to stay." Her hands tangle in his hair, mussing up the ends that are already sticking at all directions.

"You're the one who's talking about leaving!"

She just _looks _at him, and he shuts up.

It takes him all but a year to make her do so, that is to no longer resist the way he readily surrenders to her at times. It's unnerving, the influence she has over him, and it breaks the pattern of her habitual frowning into full blown, drawn out laughter, like she is laughing at this very moment, too loud and wild, tears in her eyes. Without fail, he has to tell her she's beautiful when she smiles, and he does again tonight.

"I mean, I'm wondering, wherever I go…" She starts, sobering some.

"Just so it's crystal clear," he interrupts. "I'm never leaving, _never_. You'd probably have to be first to leave…only, I'm pretty sure we both know you have no chance of outrunning me. I go where you go. You're stuck with me, capisce?"

"Capisce." She beams as he presses her closer against him, tugging at her hips, his shirt she's wearing is riding up her thigh.

"Now, I've got a few ideas on how we can fix the lumpy bed." Her breath hitches at his suggestion and his touch. "Which, one should we test out first?"


End file.
